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Post by Cory Trese on Mar 11, 2011 16:37:11 GMT -5
a lot of things effect it. i put up a thread about diplomatic operations that I think will make it a more fun game to play instead of the simulation level interactions that exist today.
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spike
Exemplar
Posts: 360
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Post by spike on Mar 13, 2011 20:28:42 GMT -5
I'm leaning towards No.
After my third restart of a pure-trading game, it is still looking extremely difficult even just to survive, let alone to prosper. The typical story arc is that you just run out of money, quite early in the game, just from fuel costs, while trying to locate any viable trade routes.
By a pure trading game, I mean I buy what I sell and sell what I buy. I don't Explore, Harvest or Pirate for free goods to sell, or free fuel.
Some observations on what makes things nearly impossible for the Merchant:
+Getting enough working capital without running Missions is almost impossible. +Getting Rep without missions is so expensive that it's not worth bothering with. Basically Rep is something you buy, out of surplus profits. All of your Rep-making transactions are loss-making transactions. Getting to the position of having enough surplus profits to afford these deliberate losses is very difficult. You can probably only afford to buy Rep when alliance politics mean the Rep will be gained with multiple factions. But you can't do that with Records, only with Contraband. +Similar with Permits. Permits are very precious. You don't buy them in order to trade in Contraband, because trade in Contraband is always heavily loss-making. You buy Permits mainly to protect you from Privateers (which will seize anything from you, whether you are carrying contraband or not). Permits also 'permit' you to buy Rep, if and when you have the spare cash for this very costly activity. Permits are so precious that you can never afford to risk losing one by violating a Trade Embargo. +You can forget about Upgrades at the beginning as well. The most important Upgrade you miss is increasing your Sails to cut your fuel costs. Don't bother increasing Intimidation as this has an insignificant effect on fuel use. But you can't really afford the Sails upgrade, as it wipes out almost all of your puny 7000 starting capital. So you have to live with high fuel costs. Buy fuel at the cheapest places, and cache it. But you can't afford to buy too much, and you can't afford to be running backward and forward to the cache either. +Information is king, so you can't afford not to Buy Rumours. But the cost of Buying every Rumour really cuts in to your very limited cash. +Quantities for sale don't follow economic logic. The resulting low/zero quantities of (what would be) low priced goods end up sabotaging what would otherwise be viable trade routes. (In the latest game I visited 6 mining worlds, none of them had any Metals for sale, even though 3 of them had good Buy prices for Metals, that would create viable trade routes. Only one mining planet had any Crystals, and the Buy price was one of the worst in the Galaxy, and the quantity was only 8.) The problem I think is maybe that the Economy and/or Population size is used to determine the quantities available? Meaning resource quantities available at (e.g.) mining camps suffer due to having small populations/economies? That should be overridden by the Production factors (metals, chemicals and maybe crystals on mining worlds, plants and clothing and vodka on agricultural worlds, etc). Supplies of minerals on a mining world should look more like quantities of, well, everything, on a large economy. +The opportunities created by shortages and surpluses are insignificant compared to the difficulties created by Faction Trade Embargoes and (single-planet) Bans. +At any given time, worlds affected by Faction Trade Embargoes massively outnumber worlds affected by shortages or surpluses. +Faction Trade Embargos (and other Galaxy Conflict events) are way too frequent +Shortages and Surpluses are far too rare to support Merchant characters. This could be another effect of "rumour type inflation", as noted for other classes. +Most Factions are under Faction Trade Embargo for most of the game. Unsurprisingly, being a Merchant in a galactic economy that's in permanent crisis, is a fool's errand.
Actionable suggestions:
+Ensure resource-producing worlds usually have reasonable quantities of those resources on hand. +Every Faction Trade Embargo should trigger a massive number of shortages and surpluses. All embargoed worlds (on both sides of the embargo) will be hit by surpluses, as they can't sell anything. They will hit by shortages, as they can't buy anything. And all their trading partners will also be hit by shortages and surpluses for the same reason. Each Faction Trading Embargo directly affects around 10 worlds, plus the trading partners of those worlds. It would be totally reasonable to have each Faction Trading Embargo generate (say) 20 surpluses and 20 specific shortages. +Reduce frequency and duration of Faction Trade Embargoes +Make at least some Faction Trade Embargoes one-sided only, instead of mutual/reciprocal [unless they already are one-sided?] +Increase frequency of shortage and surplus rumours very significantly. You may want to cheat in the rumour engine, and start biasing the rumours that come up, to the player's Character class, or their top skills. +Create a Common Trader permit that is easier to get than a Rogue Trader permit. It only protects from Privateers, it doesn't permit trading in Contraband. Permits are already cheap in cash terms for Merchants, so make the Common Trader permit require less Rep (which is very hard for the pure trader to obtain). +Create an Authorised Trader Permit, similar in cost and difficulty to a Rogue Trader Permit, that allows the Merchant to trade on Faction Trade Embargoed planets without Rep penalty. +Consider giving Merchants cheaper fuel costs (maybe leverage Negotiation more). +Consider giving Merchants more starting money - but warn them not to blow it on Upgrades. +Explain what the Economic Records special ability is that Merchants have? +At the outset of the game, give Merchants (and Smugglers and Star Traders to a lesser extent) information on the prices of some other planets. E.g. all planets in their home faction, or all capital worlds, or something like that. Information is the key thing for a Merchant. As a pure Merchant, you basically burn money for fuel as you travel around picking up Exchange price information and Buying every rumour to try desperately to get a Shortage or Surplus rumour. +Create Rumours that provide information on remote prices/quantities for some goods. +Reduce Buy Rumour prices for Merchants, maybe also leverage skill/stats to reduce prices further. +As a a test, consider giving Merchant characters automatic instant access to all prices, including quantities available, on all planets in the Galaxy. Even with this 'perfect information' I think it would still be very tough to play a trading strategy and succeed.
[Edited to clarify when I'm talking about Faction Trade Embargoes]
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Post by oldalchemist on Mar 15, 2011 10:44:01 GMT -5
Merchants shouldn't have to pay for rumors. They should have high Charisma and should do pretty well with free 'Next Rumor' chit-chat.
With a high charisma, you need to raise your Intimidate skill to keep fuel costs down.
I agree with the embargoes generating shortages and surpluses. It also gives the Merchant interesting choices of profit vs. rep loss.
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spike
Exemplar
Posts: 360
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Post by spike on Mar 15, 2011 11:58:11 GMT -5
The reason I've started always Buying rumours (now the Buy Rumour system is operational) is that, even though my Merchant has a high Charisma, Rumours are so precious that I can't afford to miss one. Since (I think?) there are a finite number of rumours on each planet visit, I spend money Buying rumours so that the maximum number of rumours I get, are real concrete rumours. I don't want to risk expending one of my precious few available Rumour slots on a flavour text.
I may have misunderstood the new Rumour mechanics though. But my understanding is that's the only reason to Buy rumours: to make sure a higher proportion of a fixed number of available rumours turn out to be concrete rumours.
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spike
Exemplar
Posts: 360
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Post by spike on Mar 15, 2011 12:15:35 GMT -5
oldalchemist, thanks, I did try investing in Intimidation to improve my fuel costs and it had only a negligible effect. Getting to 20 Solar Sails (via Nano Sail +6 upgrade) seems much more effective, though it's expensive when you're just starting out and trying to conserve capital for trading. But maybe I need to invest more points in Intimidation, maybe I'm starting at a flat part of the curve and need to get into the middle of the curve. Still, from a role playing point of view, I didn't expect that Intimidation would be the key skill for my starting Merchant character.
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Post by oldalchemist on Mar 15, 2011 14:02:39 GMT -5
My Explorer captains seem to get pretty decent mileage with heavy Engine upgrades, Pilot skill equal to hull size (under 20 usually), a dozen or so points in Intimidation, 5-10 tons of Luxury Rations with my water, and no sail upgrades.
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Post by Cory Trese on Mar 15, 2011 15:19:37 GMT -5
I like this thread, it does have some interesting ideas. Mixed in with some confusion and mis-information, but still, I am reading it and trying to sort out things that are positive and enhancing.
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"The key skill is Intimidation" << not at all from my (or the game's) POV. The value of intimidation for multiple-sector hops through Red Space is critical, but the ratio of efficient Crew / Pilot / Hull yields a suitable (from the game design standpoint) curve of fuel consumptions.
"Reduce Buy Rumour prices for Merchants" << Get the Spy to reduce Buy Rumor prices by 90%.
"Make at least some Trade Embargoes one-sided only" << They are 1 sided. Do you mean Trade Wars?
Sometimes these threads make me think the following:
"If you play this game and expect it to be a different game, it will not be that different game. If you want ST RPG to be a game that is not ST RPG, you will not like ST RPG. If you try to play ST RPG by the rules of another game, ST RPG will not follow those rules and you will not like ST RPG."
When I play Merchant I usually end up with 200K and a lot of spare freighters sitting in Dry Dock. But I am playing Merchant, the ST RPG character class, not this other non-ST RPG character class the "pure trader."
I am not even sure who the "pure trader" is in ST RPG -- they seem like an artifact introduced via another game. However, I am all for improving the Merchant Class. Some of the work that needs to be done is fixing, some is improving. Merchant has no doubt been negatively impacted by the changes between 3.0 and 3.5
The Captain is an off-worlder. He or she is visiting an off-world exchange. There are rules, Faction laws, black-markets, skill tests, supply, demand, rumors, conflicts and many factors to consider.
The "quantity in Exchange" does not literally map to the planet's ability to produce (for example, why would a Faction world busy building WARSHIPS sell you Metal you can take off world?)
Points I agree strongly with: + Shortages and Surpluses are more rare now than originally designed + Document the Economic Records special ability (it creates piles of records for smart trading) + Create Rumours that provide information on remote prices/quantities for some goods + The opportunities created by shortages and surpluses are insignificant compared to the difficulties created by Trade Embargoes and Bans (although, this is statement is limited in scope and shouldn't be taken outside of context of the comparative elements -- it does not, for example, consider the advantages of Trade Embargoes.)
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Post by MTKnife on Mar 15, 2011 15:59:45 GMT -5
I am not even sure who the "pure trader" is in ST RPG -- they seem like an artifact introduced via another game. However, I am all for improving the Merchant Class. Some of the work that needs to be done is fixing, some is improving. Merchant has no doubt been negatively impacted by the changes between 3.0 and 3.5 I assume people are just taking the term "Merchant" literally--someone who makes his living buying stuff, moving it, and then selling it. That's a "character type" that's existed in every human society (not just games), but it doesn't work in ST, and it's understandable that people find that offputting. There are advantages of Trade Embargoes? For the player?
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Post by ehkamp on Mar 15, 2011 16:03:48 GMT -5
What are the advantages of a Trade Embargo? (I'm talking about the Rumor that affects a single Trade Good in a single Trade Exchange, not the broader Trade War.) In my head, this is one of those "avoid this place" Rumors.
As I understand it (please correct me!), a Trade Embargo causes ↓ inventory, ↑ Buy price (but unchanged Sell price), and ↑ military & smugglers present. So even if there is inventory available to Buy, the cost is inflated. But (unlike a Shortage Rumor), there is no monetary advantage to selling this Trade Good at the Trade Exchange under a Trade Embargo Rumor vs not under a Rumor vs any other Trade Exchange.
I'm clearly missing the upside. Can someone please explain it to me?
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Post by Cory Trese on Mar 15, 2011 16:14:49 GMT -5
I am not even sure who the "pure trader" is in ST RPG -- they seem like an artifact introduced via another game. However, I am all for improving the Merchant Class. Some of the work that needs to be done is fixing, some is improving. Merchant has no doubt been negatively impacted by the changes between 3.0 and 3.5 I assume people are just taking the term "Merchant" literally--someone who makes his living buying stuff, moving it, and then selling it. That's a "character type" that's existed in every human society (not just games), but it doesn't work in ST, and it's understandable that people find that offputting. I do not see what you mean at all! Certainly, I am not attempting to redefine the word "Merchant" in the broader sense of human society. I am, however, attempting to model a complex world. Today the "merchant" must pay careful attention to how, when and where to buy and sell. Permits, plans, licenses, inventory and a variety of other factors conspire to make the Merchant's life more complex. I assume some people are taking "Merchant" far too literally -- it does not mean a person who can buy/sell at random and become rich as a result.
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Post by Cory Trese on Mar 15, 2011 16:22:49 GMT -5
I roll over and admit defeat.
I'm going to go back over this thread and the other one.
Thanks for the actionable to-do items. I'll do my best.
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Post by MTKnife on Mar 15, 2011 17:32:12 GMT -5
I do not see what you mean at all! Certainly, I am not attempting to redefine the word "Merchant" in the broader sense of human society. I am, however, attempting to model a complex world. Today the "merchant" must pay careful attention to how, when and where to buy and sell. Permits, plans, licenses, inventory and a variety of other factors conspire to make the Merchant's life more complex. I assume some people are taking "Merchant" far too literally -- it does not mean a person who can buy/sell at random and become rich as a result. Lord no--if it's too easy, it's no fun! I think what people want is a way to make money without fighting, exploring, or doing anything illegal. The amounts of money involved shouldn't be great compared to those other routes (though with big ships, the profits should get bigger), but the risks to life and limb should be small as well. But yes, it should still require being clever: picking up rumors, scouting prices, and figuring out whether the profit to be made is worth the cost in time and fuel.
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Post by Cory Trese on Mar 15, 2011 18:40:20 GMT -5
I'm going to start with fixing this stuff in the next release:
+ Shortages and Surpluses are more rare now than originally designed + Document the Economic Records special ability (it creates piles of records for smart trading) + Create Rumours that provide information on remote prices/quantities for some goods
And, of course, a few more idea from Dr. K
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Post by MTKnife on Mar 15, 2011 19:11:18 GMT -5
That sounds good!
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spike
Exemplar
Posts: 360
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Post by spike on Mar 16, 2011 6:01:23 GMT -5
I second what mtknife said and @cory those 3 prioritised improvements sound great.
There is an element of confusion, pointed out by ehkamp, that we have two things in the game that are different but which are both called Trade Embargo. One is a Faction to Faction Galactic event, one is a single-planet rumour event.
In my posts above I'm always always talking about the Big One, the Faction to Faction galactic-level Embargo. Not the Trade War, not the single-planet event (except maybe in one case where I tried to be explicit).
So @cory are you saying the Faction to Faction Trade Embargo is only one way? So if Cadar embargoes Thulun, I can buy and sell at a Cadar planet without getting Rep penalties with Thulun? I did not get that impression from playing the game but I'm sorry if I misunderstood that.
Edit: I checked, and Faction Trade Embargoes are definitely two-way. If there is a Cadar vs Thulun Faction Trade Embargo, trading with Cadar loses you Rep with Thulun, and trading with Thulun loses you Rep with Cadar. So my point stands - each Faction Trade Embargo affects around 10 planets (9 min to 12 max).
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